Psychological incivility research update: Incivility is bad for rationality

A 55 minute segment of the Hidden Brain program that NPR broadcasts weekly focuses on social science related to incivility. Rudeness is toxic to the human mind. The effects are subtle but surprisingly powerful and often lingering. The interviewer is Shankar Vedantam and he speaks with researcher Christine Porath.

One part of the transcript, starting at 16:04:

Shankar Vedantam: I want to examine both the immediate effects of incivility on the mind, as well as some of these long-term effects that you're talking about. You say that instability can hijack the amygdala. What do you mean by this, Christine?

Christine Porath: Well, I think it means that we're flooded with emotions and that's when kind of this idea of fight or flight gear kicks in. And it leads to us, for many people, being paralyzed almost in terms of not being able to respond to things, or not being able to react or make changes that would help us in that moment. It's almost as if we can't cope with the situation because we're struggling to process things. And so one way that I think about this is like the storm inside your brain.

Shankar Vedantam: Christina has conducted many studies into the effects of incivility, one of them builds on a famous psychological experiment. Volunteers are asked to watch a video of people rapidly passing a basketball. Right in the middle of the game, a person wearing a gorilla suit walks through the middle of the frame. Many volunteers fail to notice the gorilla because they're so focused on the ball being passed.

Shankar Vedantam: In Christine's experiment, she exposed a subset of volunteers to incivility before they watched the video.

Christine Porath: They were five times less likely to see the gorilla on the screen and that really surprised us but also with other studies, what we found is that it took people a lot longer to answer questions, to solve anagrams, word jumbles, to create words. They had much more difficulty doing that kind of thing, so cognitive performance went down significantly, roughly about 30% across different studies. And even their physical moves to answer questions, that was slower. It seemed to be affecting people in all sorts of ways and what's interesting also is that people weren't aware of this.

Shankar Vedantam: There's been some work that you and others have done looking at the effects of incivility on memory. What do you find?

Christine Porath: We find that when people witness rudeness, they are far less likely to be able to remember things. They make a lot more errors. We measured this with math errors. We measured this with performance errors on cognitive tests and the differences were really stunning with just seeing this or being around it.

Shankar Vedantam: Hmm. You've even found that incivility has effects on our creativity, which I found really surprising. What do you find, Christine?

Christine Porath: Yeah. We find again, whether you experience incivility, whether you witness it, it decreases your ability to come up with creative ideas. In some of the tests, we give them this study where they come up with as many ideas for what to do with a brick as possible, and we code it for dysfunctional ideas as well as how creative the ideas are. What we find is the people that were exposed to rudeness, they come up with really dysfunctional responses for what you do with a brick. They'll say things like, "break someone's nose," "smash someone's fingers," "beat or crush a person to death," "sink a body in a river," "throw it through a window," "place it on the floor to stub people's toe," or something like that.

Shankar Vedantam: It almost seems as if people are coming up with creative uses for the brick that are somewhat aggressive.

Christine Porath: Yeah, scary aggressive. It was just stunning to see the ideas that people came up with because really all that they were exposed to was just one quick incident. It was like a fleeting moment that they were exposed to and somehow this is what they came up with.

Shankar Vedantam: Why do you think rudeness has these effects on creativity, both in some ways limiting how creative we can be, but also perhaps exacerbating this kind of aggressive creativity?

Christine Porath: I think it ties to the hijacking people's focus and attention and the lack of awareness around that. People become much more self-focused, much less other-focused and I think our mind is wrapped up on replaying the incident, where they're not focusing on the task nearly as much. They're overwhelmed by other thoughts and so it's very hard to think about anything else.

Let’s do some self-reflecting…

Well, our Christian visitors are finally gone.  It was a good visit, no problems.  But I have to say, I’ve never heard the word “church” mentioned so many times in the short 3-week timeframe before.  But religion is their obsession, so…  I think I can understand.  I try to.  It's something real and important to them; as real as our (mostly atheists here) reality is to us. 🤷‍♀️

Which got me to wondering, do we here have the same kind of obsession with our politics as they have with their particular obsession, religion?

I ask in earnest because, if I’m honest, I do see some similarity.  So, what is the real difference between obsessions?

Could it be:

• A case of something we see as their fantasy versus our reality?  Meaning, we are more obsessed with thoughts of the real world, versus their being obsessed with thoughts of the other world?  

• Does our being tethered to a more “provable reality” makes that obsession more, I’ll call it, “legitimate/worthy”?  How is legitimacy and worth really judged/gauged anyway?  Strictly in the eye of the beholder?

• For example, while we worry about the real-world consequence of, say a Trump victory in November, they worry about the other worldly consequences of not accepting religion (i.e., eternity in Hell).

Discuss the difference between obsession with politics versus obsession with religion.  Break down the relevant factors to be considered.  Justify them, in your opinion.

(by PrimalSoup)

Drug prices finally negotiated down; Global warming & our broken DoJ

After decades of drug companies screaming and howling that they will be destroyed, the US government under Biden has finally been able to negotiate lower prices for a few commonly used drugs. The new prices kick in in 2026. Price reductions range from 38% to 79%.

 Medicare would have saved $6 billion, if the lower prices had been in effect in 2023. As usual, the whole endeavor is shrouded in opacity as drug companies desperately try to keep prices jacked up as high as possible as long as possible. The NYT comments:

It is impossible to tell how much the new prices will save Medicare for each individual drug subject to negotiations. The federal government does not disclose the net prices it pays for medications, which take into account the billions of dollars in discounts the program receives.

Medicare’s Part D program covers most of the costs of prescription drugs that seniors take at home. Approximately nine million Part D beneficiaries took at least one of the first 10 medications subject to negotiations in 2022, according to federal estimates. Some will see direct savings at the pharmacy counter as a result of the negotiation program.

The prices the Biden administration announced were made possible by the Inflation Reduction Act, a climate, health and tax bill signed by Mr. Biden in 2022 that granted the health and human services secretary the authority to negotiate on behalf of Medicare.

A person can rest assured that if DJT were elected in 2020, the drug price negotiations would have never taken place because as we all know, unregulated markets always do everything better than government intervention. Heck, DJT would never have allowed drug price negotiating in any law he could veto. And, one can credit the Democrats for fighting to get drug price negotiations in any law that passed congress. And, lest there by any shred of confusion, all House and Senate Republicans opposed the Inflation Reduction Act:

Congressional Republicans strongly opposed the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) when it was passed in 2022. Every Republican in both the House and Senate voted against the IRA. Republicans argued it was a "reckless spending spree" that would harm the economy and waste taxpayer money. They claimed it would not effectively reduce inflation, despite its name. Many objected to the climate and clean energy provisions, viewing them as an expensive and ineffective "Green New Deal".

But since the bill was passed and spending started, some Republicans have taken credit for the law when spending in their state or voting districts started. One source commented:

Hall of Republican Clean Energy Hypocrisy

Not a single Republican in Congress voted to support the Inflation Reduction Act, a key pillar of the Biden administration's affordable clean energy plan. And yet, many are happy to cheer the IRA-funded projects that are benefitting the communities they represent. Read more below and select a Representative to read about their newfound support for clean energy, in their own words.

The shameless hypocrites:

Their comments in opposition of the IRA and then

later in support of local spending are cited for each hypocrite

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The costs of global warming are significant and increasing. One estimate is that economic cost in the US is running at about $150 billion/year. Other costs include a worse climate that people have to live in (that gets no economic value) and species that go extinct (they get no economic value). As usual, energy sector companies that have advocated for decades for continuing pollution and global warming deny, distract and impede efforts to do something serious, e.g., a carbon tax. The Hill writes about people wanting the DoJ to file lawsuits against pro-pollution companies for the damage they help cause:

Survivors of “climate disasters” are calling on federal prosecutors to bring fossil fuel companies to court.

The over 1,000 signatories of Thursday’s letter to the Department of Justice lived through wildfires, floods and heat waves caused or exacerbated by the burning of fossil fuels.

Major oil companies have “known since the 1950s about the dangers posed by burning fossil fuels,” they wrote.

“Instead of acting responsibly on their own scientists’ warnings, they waged a decades-long disinformation campaign to muddy the science and confuse and mislead the public.”

Though scientists at fossil fuel companies like Exxon projected current levels of planetary heating with startling accuracy, the industry spent decades fighting climate science, and currently contests federal regulation and financial tools that seek to slow it.

The letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland comes amid a wave of nationwide pressure against the industry. 

On the civil front, there is the a wave of “climate superfund” legislation or lawsuits — from seven states, 35 cities and Washington, D.C. — that seek to hold the industry responsible for the costs of climate change.

In May, House and Senate Democrats referred their own investigation of the industry to the Department of Justice, with Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) calling on Garland to “investigate big oil for its decades long disinformation campaign to mislead the American public.”

Given Garland's stunning fear of doing anything that might make MAGA angry, it seems unlikely that he will do anything. The polluters will continue to make as much money from pollution as possible. If DJT gets re-elected, we all know how that will play out.

A study commissioned by Consumer reports commented on the burden to individuals:

So a new report commissioned by Consumer Reports and conducted by ICF, a global consulting firm that conducts climate studies for businesses and governments, might snap some of us to attention. Its finding: If humanity does not act swiftly to limit it, climate change will cost a typical child born in 2024 at least around $500,000 over the course of their lifetime—and possibly as much as $1 million—through a combination of cost-of-living increases and reduced earnings.

That’s in 2024 dollars, meaning each newborn will lose the current purchasing power of those amounts. Add in inflation and the actual amount they’ll lose over their lifetimes will be much larger.

The study also says those costs will be significantly lower if we act quickly to reduce global carbon emissions.

That speaks for itself. The Republican Party still considers global warming to be a hoax or something not important or urgent. So, both DJT and the GOP will continue to fight tooth and claw for more pollution and more costs that global warming will impose on average people, while wealthy elites just turn on their air conditioners. 

It still smells

The MSM's double standard?; DJT's outrageous behaviors

Sometimes, the mainstream media looks to be biased in favor of authoritarianism. The AP reports about a recent example:

At least three news outlets were leaked confidential material from inside the Donald Trump campaign, including its report vetting JD Vance as a vice presidential candidate. So far, each has refused to reveal any details about what they received.

Instead, Politico, The New York Times and The Washington Post have written about a potential hack of the campaign and described what they had in broad terms.

Their decisions stand in marked contrast to the 2016 presidential campaign, when a Russian hack exposed emails to and from Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager, John Podesta. The website Wikileaks published a trove of these embarrassing missives, and mainstream news organizations covered them avidly.

Politico wrote over the weekend about receiving emails starting July 22 from a person identified as “Robert” that included a 271-page campaign document about Vance and a partial vetting report on Sen. Marco Rubio, who was also considered as a potential vice president. Both Politico and the Post said that two people had independently confirmed that the documents were authentic.

“Like many such vetting documents,” The Times wrote of the Vance report, “they contained past statements with the potential to be embarrassing or damaging, such as Mr. Vance’s remarks casting aspersions on Mr. Trump.”  

The Times said it would not discuss why it had decided not to print details of the internal communications. A spokesperson for the Post said: “As with any information we receive, we take into account the authenticity of the materials, any motives of the source and assess the public interest in making decisions about what, if anything, to publish.”  

Steven Cheung, a spokesperson for Trump’s campaign, said over the weekend that “any media or news outlet reprinting documents or internal communications are doing the bidding of America’s enemies.” 

It’s also easy to recall how, in 2016, candidate Trump and his team encouraged coverage of documents on the Clinton campaign that Wikileaks had acquired from hackers. It was widespread: A BBC story promised “18 revelations from Wikileaks’ hacked Clinton emails” and Vox even wrote about Podesta’s advice for making superb risotto.

Brian Fallon, then a Clinton campaign spokesperson, noted at the time how striking it was that concern about Russian hacking quickly gave way to fascination over what was revealed. “Just like Russia wanted,” he said.

So in 2024 it is OK for the NYT, WaPo and Politico to withhold the juicy bits from the leaked documents because of potentially embarrassing or damaging content for Vance and/or DJT. But in 2016, the MSM freely blasted out everything that was damaging to Hillary, helping to put DJT in power. What happened here?

Does anyone notice DJT's shameless hypocrisy in his 2016 vs 2024 mindset, or it is just me? 

Q: Is this 2016 vs 2024 story a nothingburger, or is it evidence that the MSM is pro-authoritarian biased, stupidly incompetent or both?

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Random news bit:

Donald Trump said on his Elon Musk interview that he might leave the country if he loses the upcoming US presidential election. He said he would go to Venezuela to hide out. Does this make him a bigger flight risk? Is it possible this could have cause his bail to be revoked?

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Regarding DJT's outrageous behaviors: For some reason, two bits of what is standard news about DJT sparked deep anger in me. Why today? Who knows. Anyway, my anger is directed at DJT, the entire Republican Party and DJT's emotional support billionaires, Elon Musk in this case. 

In the first bit, The Hill reports that a Democratic political group filed a lawsuit claiming that DJT violated campaign finance law by virtue of his 2 hour "interview" with Elon Musk on X: 

The Democratic organization End Citizens United filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) on Tuesday over former President Trump’s interview with tech billionaire Elon Musk.

Trump spoke with Musk on social media platform X, which Musk owns, on Monday night for roughly two hours after their conversation was delayed by technical difficulties. In its complaint on Tuesday, End Citizens United alleged that the interview was a corporate contribution that violated campaign finance laws.

“The Donald Trump-Elon Musk campaign rally hosted on X wasn’t just an incoherent diatribe of lies marred by technical difficulties, it was a blatantly illegal corporate contribution to Donald Trump’s campaign,” End Citizens United President Tiffany Muller said in a statement.

“This brazen corporate contribution undermines campaign finance laws and would set a dangerous precedent for unfettered, direct corporate engagement in campaigns. The FEC must investigate this corporate-funded campaign event and hold Trump, his campaign, and X Corp. accountable,” she added.

The complaint notes that federal campaign finance law prohibits corporations from making contributions to federal candidates, who cannot accept the contributions. It said that the “conversation” between the former president and Musk “amounted to a virtual campaign event for Donald J. Trump financed by X.”

That is infuriating. If Harris had done the same, DJT and the GOP would be howling in self-righteous outrage about the horrible breaking of sacred laws.

Also infuriating, the courts are not going to hold DJT or Musk accountable any time soon, if ever. The radical Republican USSC hates campaign finance laws as undue burdens on "free speech."More importantly, the UUSSC secretly hates campaign finance laws as undue burdens on corruption because they impose some transparency on bribery. If this winds up at the USSC, one can see the applicable law likely falling as an unconstitutional burden on "free speech."

The 2nd bit, is an item from Reuters about DJT holding the courts in utter contempt and never, ever, accepting an adverse ruling against him:

NEW YORK, Aug 14 (Reuters) - A New York judge declined for a third time to step aside from the case in which Donald Trump was convicted of charges involving hush money paid to a porn star, dismissing the former U.S. president's claim of conflict of interest related to political consultancy work by the judge's daughter.

As he did in April and in August 2023, Justice Juan Merchan in a decision released on Wednesday denied a request by Trump's lawyers that he recuse himself from the first case involving criminal charges against a former U.S. president. Merchan is scheduled to sentence Trump on Sept. 18.

"Defendant has provided nothing new for this Court to consider. Counsel has merely repeated arguments that have already been denied by this and higher courts" and were "rife with inaccuracies and unsubstantiated claims," Merchan wrote in the ruling, dated Aug. 13.[DJT's utter contempt for the court and the rule of law cannot get much clearer than this]

A spokesperson for the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office declined to comment. 

"The Highly Conflicted Judge should have long ago recused himself from this case," Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a statement.

Trump was found guilty by a jury on May 30 on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records for having covered up former personal lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen's $130,000 payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels to avert a sex scandal before the 2016 U.S. election.

Two months later, his lawyers made their third request that Merchan step aside, arguing that his daughter's work for a political consultancy that has counted Democratic campaigns among its clients - including the unsuccessful bid by Kamala Harris for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination - posed a conflict of interest.

That 2nd bit about DJT asking for the 3rd time for the judge to step aside due to an alleged conflict of interest is well beyond an insulting outrage. DJT himself operates with no ethical concerns, including actual, blatant conflicts of interest. But here he howls in sanctimonious moral outrage when there is even a faint whiff of an appearance of a conflict he has no basis to howl about. His shameless hypocrisy is off the charts.

Q: Is Germaine being irrational or too wuss for having been triggered by DJT and the toxic combination of his authoritarianism, constant mendacity, ghastly corruption, contempt for the rule of law, and hypocrisy?